By the time the sun set on America Tuesday evening, the country had been host to at least three more harrowing events involving gun violence, or the threat of it.
In Winston-Salem, Noth Carolina, a mother tragically shot her three children and then took her own life in an apparent murder-suicide. In Arlington, a man took 4 adults and one child hostage at a bank while demanding money and claiming to have a weapon. He was eventually taken into custody with no physical injuries reported. And in the nation’s capital, one victim died and three others were injured in a shooting outside a funeral home in the District of Columbia.
The flurry of violent headlines came just one day after a shooter in Louisville opened fire at a bank with an AR-15, killing five victims, and roughly two weeks after six victims died in a mass shooting inside a Nashville elementary school.
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But Tuesday’s shootings exemplified more than just the country’s deadly gun epidemic—they also demonstrated the accelerating pace at which Americans are being exposed to gun violence. In fact, a KFF poll released this week found that more than half of U.S. adults have been personally affected by some form of gun violence.
One in five (21%) say they have personally been threatened with a gun, a similar share (19%) say a family member was killed by a gun (including death by suicide), and nearly as many (17%) have personally witnessed someone being shot. Smaller shares have personally shot a gun in self-defense (4%) or been injured in a shooting (4%). In total, about half (54%) of all U.S. adults say they or a family member have ever had one of these experiences.
Though the poll found that gun-related injuries, deaths, and anxiety disproportionately affect people of color, it also found that more than eight in ten adults (84%) have taken at least one precaution to protect themselves and their families. Examples include educating themselves and their family members about guns and gun safety; purchasing a weapon, such as a knife, pepper spray, or in some cases a gun; and changing their behavior, such as avoiding crowds, public transit, or changing the school their child attends.
Students, in particular, have been fervently voicing their disgust over the deadly gun culture that is now infecting nearly every part of daily life in America. Last Wednesday, thousands of students across the country staged a mass walkout to demand action on gun control and an end to gun violence.
A Harvard Youth Poll released in March showed a pervasive hunger among young voters to address the national gun epidemic. The survey showed nearly two-thirds (63%) of voters under 30 support stricter gun laws, including majorities of young people in college and not attending college; young white, Black, Hispanic, and Asian Americans; men and women; and those living in cities, suburban areas, and small towns.
The Harvard survey also found 73% support for requiring psychological exams for all gun purchases, and 58% support for banning assault weapons.
“From Parkland to Uvalde to the shooting yesterday in Nashville, young Americans have consistently demanded stricter gun laws,” said Ethan Jasny, student chair of the Harvard Public Opinion Project (HPOP), upon releasing the poll. “Even when mass shootings aren’t in the news, the threat of gun violence hangs over my generation, provoking anxiety for those who are already suffering most from the mental health crisis.”
The massive number of Americans who have personally experienced gun violence, its overall impact on quality of life, and the near-daily headlines over the past week have turned up the heat on Republicans and their continued recalcitrance to saving lives by enacting popularly supported gun laws.
Despite being on the verge of losing a massive generation of voters who literally fear for their lives, Republicans remain both obstinate and impervious to the peril.
Just after the Nashville shooting, GOP Rep. Tim Burchett quickly dismissed calls for action, saying, “We’re not gonna fix it. Criminals are gonna be criminals.”
Several days later, Burchett followed up on the comments by calling for more thoughts and prayers.
"We need a real revival in this country,” he said. “Let’s call on our Christian ministers and our people of faith.”
Former Wisconsin GOP Gov. Scott Walker suggested a different approach last week after a progressive judge trounced a conservative judge by winning 55% of the vote in the race for a seat on the state Supreme Court.
Identifying younger voters’ wholesale rejection of the Republican Party, Walker told Fox News, “It comes from years of radical indoctrination - on campus, in school, with social media, & throughout culture. We have to counter it or conservatives will never win battleground states again.”
In a separate tweet, Walker wrote, “We have to undo years of liberal indoctrination,” by which he meant that Republicans needed to indoctrinate young Americans themselves or else face electoral doom.
That’s the former Republican governor of a swing state suggesting that the GOP’s best course of action is to re-educate an entire generation of kids rather than simply address their concerns. In other words, it doesn’t matter whether mass shootings are happening weekly, daily, or even hourly, Republicans aren’t going to lift a damn finger to curb gun violence in this country.
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It's never too early to start talking about the House! Joining us on this week's edition of The Downballot is Inside Elections' Jacob Rubashkin, who offers his thoughts on the overall playing field and a wide range of key contests. Jacob explains why Lauren Boebert might have an easier time of it in her likely rematch, how some candidates have a "special sauce" that allows them to keep winning difficult districts, and why he thinks Mary Peltola is favored for re-election despite Alaska's persistent red lean.
Co-hosts David Nir and David Beard also marvel at how the Tennessee GOP scored a remarkable own-goal in booting state Reps. Justin Jones and Justin Pearson, who've now already returned to the chamber with dramatically enhanced profiles; dissect the very obvious ploy by Montana Republicans to tilt the 2024 Senate election their way by changing the primary rules for just that one race; and break down a new Daily Kos Elections analysis of the 23 states that could add protections for abortion rights to their constitutions.